Digital Round Up: Top Brand Profiles on Instagram

What better way to pass time on your Friday workday than by checking out our weekly Digital RoundUp?

Earlier this week we blogged about how you can optimize your brand’s Instagram profile with apps for tracking analytics and scheduling posts. Instagram has gained huge popularity amongst top 100 brands, and small businesses are starting to make the leap.

According to Social Examiner’s 2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 28 percent of marketers are now using Instagram, up from 18 percent last year, and 42 percent plan to increase their Instagram use in the year ahead.

Forrester analyst Nate Elliot called Instagram the King of Social Media, upon discovering Instagram delivered brands “58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook, and 120 times more engagement per follower than Twitter.”

If you really want to rock Instagram, try taking a lesson from the brands that are using the platform successfully. This week we’re rounding up our favourite brand profiles on Instagram right now. Check them out.

1. Adidas Originals

What’s to love: The sports company is allowing customers to pull images from their Instagram posts and have them designed right into their ZX Flux Trainers. Customers love personalized products, and this takes it to a whole new level!

2. National Geographic

What’s to love: Just like in the publication, the visuals NatGeo shares on its Instagram profile are unreal. While we don’t expect you to reach this caliber of photography, it’s important to understand how to take a photo worth sharing.

3. Redbull

What’s to love: Remember when skydiver Felix Baumgartner successfully jumped 127,900 feet from space? Redbull, the sponsor of his jump, created a 360 degree social media campaign around the event. Instagram played a huge part in the step-by-step portrayal leading up to the jump. This is only one example of their creative use of the platform.

4. Free People

What’s to love: We love seeing brands involve customers in their marketing. Free People asks customers to post photos of themselves wearing their favourite Free People fashion, turning them into real-life models through Instagram.

5. Starbucks

What’s to love:Of course, what would an Instagram round up be without Starbucks? We love how Starbucks uses social media to generate conversations centered around the customer. It’s Instagram account is no different, featuring a call-to-action at the top, which reads “Tag your coffee photos with #Starbucks!” What better way to demonstrate customers’ interaction with the brand?